


O Christmas Tree

by startrekkingaroundasgard



Series: 25 days of ficmas [6]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M, Magic, Magic Tricks, Shapeshifting, Shenanigans, christmas trees, festive fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-07
Updated: 2018-12-07
Packaged: 2019-09-13 13:28:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16893489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/startrekkingaroundasgard/pseuds/startrekkingaroundasgard
Summary: The Avengers go in search of the biggest Christmas tree and mischief ensues as Loki and the reader cheat their way to victory.





	O Christmas Tree

Every year, the Avengers faced threats the like no one on Earth had ever seen before. They’d been up against rampaging demi gods, demons from another dimension, aliens hell bent on destroying the universe and more than their fair share of home grown psychopaths too. That was all just another day as part of the team.

However, there was one challenge, such a monumentally important task, that made all their previous missions pale in comparison. Nothing was as daunting as this. In fact, they knew going in to it that it would be a miracle if they all survived. It was an almost forgone conclusion at this point that tensions would rise so far in the team that they’d be facing a whole new Civil War.

It couldn’t be avoided, though. It had to be done.

Suited up in multiple layers to protect them from the cold, armed with nothing but Tony’s credit card, they were ready to face the ultimate test: choosing a Christmas tree for the Compound.

There was something about a Christmas tree farm which unleashed the inner child in you all. The smell of fresh pine was thick on the breeze, mingled with roasted chestnuts and all manner of gorgeous spiced hot drinks and cookies that made your mouth water. Snow was gently falling, covering everything with a paper thin layer of white dust that made it look like some perfect movie set.

Tacky strings of fairy lights hung from every post and around every sign, making it impossible not to stare at the “awesome deals” that the farm boasted. With trees as far as the eye could see, and Christmas classics blaring from the speakers, it really was like the winter wonderlands of your childhood. By your side, Peter could barely contain himself and was jumping up and down like this was the most fabulous day of his young life.

“Rules are simple,” Tony said, pulling everyone in to a group huddle. “Twenty five minutes to find the best tree. Place a tracker on the trunk and then return to this spot. We’ll then go and examine each choice and score it against the predetermined criteria. This prize is the same as always. Tampering with the trackers means instant disqualification. Are we clear?”

“Are you trying to say something, Tony?” you asked, touching your chest in mock offence. You cuddled up to Loki, who instinctively wrapped his arm around you, his hand coming to rest on your hip in the most natural way. The familiar contact filled your chest with love and made you feel warm all over.

Standing just a little taller than he had been a moment before, protectiveness for you simply radiating off him, Loki looked down on the rest of the team and said, “Surely, Stark, you aren’t trying to insinuate that we would ever do something like that? We would never…”

Every single member of the team then proceeded to point out that that was exactly what you and Loki had done last year. It was absolutely the reason that these new rules had been put into place and Tony had even gone so far as to rig the trackers with terrible little booby traps in case you tried anything again this year.

You rolled your eyes and promised not to touch the trackers. Synchronising your watches, Steve gave the countdown that began the mayhem. While everyone else darted off in different directions, you and Loki held back and waited patiently until they were no longer in sight. When you were sure that no one was around to see, you pulled a small device from the pocket of your coat.

“Is it working?” Loki asked, resting his chin on your shoulder.

“Give it a second to turn on! Okay… It looks like… Yes! I’ve got them!” Feeling undeniably smug that you had managed to hijack the trackers’ signals, you watched the little red dots moving out. “A working GPS on every Avenger and a direct line to where their trees are.”

Loki kissed your cheek and squeezed your waist, pulling you even tighter against him. “You are a genius, my darling.”

“I know,” you grinned, planting a soft kiss on his lips. You grabbed his hand and tapped the screen. “Look, this one has stopped moving already. I bet that’s Clint. Come on, let’s go.”

Weaving through the crowds with ease - after all, a few excitable children and their parents were nothing compared to the armies you too frequently battled against - you jumped behind a nearby tree when you caught sight of Clint’s face in the distance. Whispering a victorious “I told you it’d be him” into Loki’s ear, you waited until he rounded the corner before heading over to his tree.

“Are you sure that this is the right one?” you asked, staring at the frankly pathetic thing in confusion. Loki nodded, equally confused as he pointed out the tracker at the base. Neither of you could begin to fathom why he had chosen this. It fulfilled none of the criteria; it was barely 6 feet tall, had branches that were disproportionately thick at the top and was a kind of murky green instead of the bright shade you were meant to be looking for.

After a quick discussion, you decided that it wasn’t worth messing with as it obviously wouldn’t win anyway. So, annoyed that you’d wasted precious minutes for nothing, you found the nearest tracker and sprinted off in that direction.

There, you found Steve and Bucky arguing over which of the two trees in front of them they were going to choose. Like you and Loki, they were always a team. They never won anything due to the fact they almost always spent too long arguing to actually make a choice but you couldn’t risk them making a last minute decision - not when both of their options were so good.

You glanced over to Loki, who was already moving into position, ready to enact his part of the plan. Signalling that you were ready to go, you jumped out from your hiding place behind an inflatable Santa (which had smelled like the back end of a reindeer enclosure at the zoo) and not so subtly began whistling Steve’s least favourite Christmas tunes.

The Captain’s head whipped around towards you with so much ferocity that you were amazed he didn’t pull something. He nudged Bucky in the side, trying and failing to be sneaky about it, before they suddenly charged towards you. Too fast for them, you slipped between the trees and hid in amongst the foliage until you saw them double back in annoyance.

“I’m telling you, Buck, Y/N and Loki are up to something,” Steve grumbled as he walked past your hiding spot. He was completely oblivious to your presence, something you couldn’t help but feel pride in. It wasn’t easy to pull one over on the Captain. You were merely grateful that he wasn’t on full alert today.

“When are they not?” Bucky asked. Rubbing his gloved hands together, he whined, “Come on, Stevie. Let’s just pick a damn tree and get somewhere a little warmer, yeah?”

“These the ones, right? I swear they all look the same anyway. Why Tony bothers to do this every year…” Steve grumbled. In truth, both soldiers knew that Steve adored these stupid holiday traditions but neither said anything. He would only deny it anyway.

Realising that they would never reach an agreement over which of the trees to choose, Steve and Bucky tossed a coin to choose their winner. When Bucky called the winner, they attached the tracker to the trunk of his favourite and then disappeared off around the corner to await the rest of the team.

You grinned when the tree began to shimmer a bright green and revealed, instead of the beautiful wonder that Bucky believed he’d chosen, a depressingly sickly tree. It was even shorter than Clint’s and honestly looked like it had seen better days. The branches were barely more than thin twigs and there were huge patches with absolutely no pine needles on at all. There was no way that they could win with this.

A pair of arms suddenly wrapped themselves around your waist and you let a squeal. Loki twisted you around and silenced you with a kiss. You ran your fingers through his silky hair, tugging harshly just to hear Loki moan. It was a sound you would never tire of hearing for as long as you lived.

He nipped your bottom lip in retaliation, pushing you away with a smirk. His hands still resting comfortably on your waist, Loki said, “Enough of that, you minx. Tell me how wonderful an illusion that was.”

“The best,” you praised, meaning it. Stroking his cheek, you kissed him once more and then tugged him out from behind the trees, back onto the snowy path. “Come on. We’ve got another six to do before we run out of time.”

“Anything is possible, my love. Just point the way.”

Your next target turned out to be Thor. He was quite happily browsing the trees alone, humming old Asgardian tunes to himself to block out the Christmas songs on the speakers. You hung back while Loki shifted himself into the form of a snake and slithered over towards his brother.

It was all you could do not to laugh when Thor’s face lit up at the sight of the snake. He lifted it up gently into the air, careful not to crush it - Loki - in his big hands. Muttering what sounded like the equivalent of who’s a pretty snake in his natural tongue, you grinned when the snake’s tail slipped into Thor’s pocket and pulled out the tracker, knocking it on to the ground just within your reach.

Snatching the tracker, you pinned it on the nearest tree - a fairly modest specimen but nothing spectacular - and waited for Loki to free himself of his brother. Thankfully, it didn’t take long for Thor to get bored and set the snake down at his feet. The god smiled to himself as he watched it slither away and turned around to head back towards the meeting point, having completely forgotten the original reason for being here.

Loki shifted back into his normal form with ease, although he seemed incredibly put out by the fact he hadn’t been able to stab his brother. You consoled him with the fact that this was more important and that there would be many more opportunities to maim Thor in the future. That cheered him up considerably.

Tricking Wanda and Vision was a considerably harder task because the android was one of few in the universe who were able to see through Loki’s illusions. To make matters even more difficult, Wanda was often able to sense his magic nearby so shifting was also out of the question. So, with no other choice, you had to fall back on your own natural talents and steal their tracker the old fashioned way - pick pocketing and sleight of hand.

However, you couldn’t risk being caught so you found yourself a poor student and offered them $50 to swap your tracker with theirs for you. As it turned out, it was money exceptionally well spent as less than a minute later, the young man returned victorious. He handed over the tracker and assured you that your tracker was now sat comfortably in Wanda’s coat pocket.

All that was left to do was wait for them to pick out an amazing tree - you knew that they would, for Vision was able to categorically determine perfection - and take the credit yourself. Then you simply had to plant their tracker on a truly terrible specimen and everything would turn out exactly as you planned.

Knowing that you were now almost certainly guaranteed to win, thanks to Vision selecting a truly lovely tree and marking it with your tracker, meddling with the rest of the team was just a fun way to pass the time. Bruce, Natasha and Sam were all easily fooled by Loki’s illusions. It became a game to see how ridiculous Loki could make the illusion before someone noticed. No one did. (Although Natasha did seem a little confused how one second she’d been staring at a tree maybe 7 foot tall and then the next second it was almost 8.)

With less than 2 minutes to go before the deadline, you and Loki followed your GPS to the final moving tracker: Tony, Peter and Rhodey’s. However you barely made it within a hundred feet of where they were standing before you and Loki suddenly found yourself webbed against a lamp post.

“Mr Stark, I got them!” Peter cheered. He crouched down and picked up your adapted GPS from the ground by your feet. An amusing combination of surprise, disappointment and amazement crossed his face when he worked out exactly what you’d done. He knew first hand how hard it was to hack FRIDAY - he and Ned tried on slightly too frequent a basis to claim it was an accident - and was unashamedly impressed that you’d managed to do it so easily. But that didn’t mean he was going to let you off scot free.

“What did you do to the trackers?” Tony asked. His attempts to look seriously angry were somewhat ineffective, mostly down to the fact he was wearing a fluffy Christmas jumper and reindeer antlers on his head. Even with Rhodey backing him up, it really wasn’t as intimidating a sight as they were going for.

“We didn’t do anything! Check them. They’re all functioning perfectly. Not a single one was tampered with.”

“Y/N’s right,” Peter said, glancing up from the data readings on Tony’s phone. “All of them are giving out normal signals. None were moved or broken.”

Tony narrowed his eyes, not convinced that you were at all innocent. “How is it, then, that you are the only ones with a decent tree?”

You tried to shrug but webbed up as you were it was impossible. These weren’t just his every day webs. These were designed to keep even the Hulk down. A wise choice to use against Loki but a real pain in the ass for you.

Keeping your voice light, you said, “I wouldn’t know. Maybe the others have just had too much eggnog.”

“Are you saying that we won?” Loki asked, his priorities clear. You went to elbow him for being so obvious but ended up just scratching your arm against the wooden pole. “If the other trees are as pathetic as you seem to believe and our tracker is on quite a fantastic tree - we could barely have picked a better one out if we’d tried…”

“It is the best tree, Tones,” Rhodey muttered. He turned his back to you and Loki so you couldn’t hear what it was he said that brought such joy to Tony’s face. Looking over at Peter, the Colonel asked, “How long does it take your webs to dissolve?”

Peter thought about it for a moment before deciding on an answer. “About three hours most of the time.”

“Awesome. See you later, guys,” Tony grinned. He gave you a little wave and headed for the exit, quickly followed by the others.

You couldn’t believe that they were going to leave you stuck there in the freezing cold for three hours but when, after fifteen minutes, they didn’t return you accepted your fate. You were simply grateful that you were well wrapped in your many layers of clothes and that you had decent company with whom to pass the time. Looking round at Loki, you sighed, “Well this kinda sucks.”

“It isn’t ideal, I admit, but look at the brightside, my love.”

“What would that be, exactly?”

“We won. The prize is ours.”

“That’s awesome, Lo, but I’m not really all that thrilled right now. Maybe when we get back and I can feel my fingers again, then I’ll be a bit more excited about getting to put the star on the top of the tree.”

“Oh, come now, darling. You didn’t think that I was really just going to stand around and wait for the webs to disintegrate, did you?”

You were momentarily blinded by an intense green flash. Your entire body felt like it was on fire, burning right down to the very atoms which made you up. It was like being torn apart and then put back together again, only now you had a headache to rival your last New Year’s hangover.

Loki caught you as your stumbled, your legs not quite strong enough to hold you up after the teleport. He pulled you against his chest, wrapping his cloak around you to protect you from the snowstorm that was brewing. His green eyes glittering with love and affection for you, he kissed the top of your nose and murmured, “You’re welcome.”

“Why didn’t you do that earlier?” you groaned, smacking him on the shoulder. “I hate you.”

“No, you don’t.”

“No, I don’t,” you conceded, stretching up to meet him for a soft kiss. “Next time, though, maybe do that before I halfway freeze to death.”

“And you call me dramatic. Come, my love. Let us go and claim our prize.”


End file.
